November 13 Morning Meditation

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Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost

November 13, 2023

Invitatory

Lord, open our lips.

And our mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Reading: Psalm 77

I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, that he may hear me.

In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;

in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying;

my soul refuses to be comforted.

I think of God, and I moan; I meditate, and my spirit faints.

You keep my eyelids from closing; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

I consider the days of old and remember the years of long ago.

I commune with my heart in the night; I meditate and search my spirit:

“Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable?

Has his steadfast love ceased forever? Are his promises at an end for all time?

Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?”

And I say, “It is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed.”

I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord; I will remember your wonders of old.

I will meditate on all your work and muse on your mighty deeds.

Your way, O God, is holy. What god is so great as our God?

You are the God who works wonders;

you have displayed your might among the peoples.

With your strong arm you redeemed your people,

the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid;

the very deep trembled.

The clouds poured out water; the skies thundered;

your arrows flashed on every side.

The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind;

your lightnings lit up the world; the earth trembled and shook.

Your way was through the sea, your path through the mighty waters,

yet your footprints were unseen.

You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Meditation – Peter Vanderveen

Who owns this psalm? It’s a deadly serious question.

Who has the right to recite these words as appropriate to them?

The psalm was definitely written as an expression of Judaism.

Is it legitimate for others to appropriate it? Is it legitimate for us?

The promises of God about which the psalmist speaks: are they specific, limited, directed to only certain people?

Or have the promises changed? Have they been expanded to include others?

If so, to whom, and how? Can we say that this God is our God? Can we go further and claim that God’s promises to the psalmist are the same promises that God makes to us? Or has God promised different things to different people? And if the latter is the case, how can we make sense of this without falling into rivalry, division, and violence?

We state as Christians that the promise of God to us is redemption and salvation, the defeat of death and, in some unimaginable way, life eternal. We believe that we will not be left comfortless or abandoned. God will be with us always. These are immense promises that affect every aspect of our lives. But it would be difficult to say in the same way that God promises to us material benefits now, whether we have in mind wealth or safety or health or property. About what can we say, “God has given this to me, and it is exclusively mine.” The implication of such a statement, what then follows, is that one could also say, “God has not given this to you. You cannot have it.”

What, we might ask, ultimately, is the function of religion? Is religion our claim to the right to drag God into our struggles? Or is it the struggle of trying to understand God, predominantly as the one who relieves us from a certain pride that causes us continually to fall?

I am aware that I have placed before you a fair number of questions – notably without any attempt to provide answers as well. Answers have a way of hardening into a dangerous self-righteousness. And the psalmist doesn’t pretend to have answers either. In the context of his own distress – the awful sleeplessness that comes not just from feeling forgotten but from the suffering of being forgotten – there is no railing against foes or raging against God. Instead, in faith the psalmist trusts and waits for what he cannot do of himself, which relieves him of the urge to dominance or vengeance. These, Paul would say, do not belong to us. Just as others do not belong to us. Just as we do not belong to ourselves.

It may be that these questions address our times more eloquently than so many of the answers people want to hear.

Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy Name,

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.